


Murder She Blogged:  Campus Collaboration

by GothamRogue81



Category: Murder She Wrote
Genre: Boston, Gen, Murder Mystery, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Spin-Off
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 10:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9120133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothamRogue81/pseuds/GothamRogue81
Summary: Angela Price, a Forensic Psychology major at Boston University finds herself entangled in a murder case involving her neighbors.  With the help her her idol and guest professor, retired writer and real-life sleuth Jessica "J.B." Fletcher, she will piece together the evidence of the murder to find out just who is behind the murder as Jessica passes the torch of amateur detective to her prized pupil.





	

Angela Price typed furiously at her laptop. Several empty Dunkin Donuts coffee cups littered the desk that she had made her basecamp at Boston University Science and Engineering Library. She hit save and let out a long relieved sigh. She had been up all night finishing her thesis. The twenty-two year old Forensic Psychology major pulled her hair tie out and let her raven-black hair fall to her shoulders as she closed her laptop and gathered her things, stacking the cups together to throw out on her way out.

Despite all the caffeine, she was exhausted and couldn’t help let out a loud yawn. She looked around, hoping that no one had heard her. She returned the books she had been using, lugging her laptop bag over her shoulders. When all was done, she finally made her way out of the library and onto the dimly lit streets of Boston University’s Charles River campus. 

She thought about stopping for a slice of pizza or a cup of chowder on her way back to her Bay State Road brownstone, but she was too tired. She cut through the back streets, trying to get home as soon as possible, looking forward to curling up in her bed and getting what little sleep she had left until her morning class with Professor Fletcher. Angela hated having to be up so early for her class, but it was the only one available with Jessica Fletcher. Angela and her mother had been fans of Professor Fletcher’s mystery novels for as long as she could remember and following the career of the talented J.B. Fletcher’s exploit as a real-life sleuth who for years has helped solve real murders, was a big reason she had gotten into forensics.

As she climbed the steps of the brownstone, she heard arguing in an apartment on the first floor. A man and a woman were fighting. She listened to the harsh words the couple was exchanging as she searched for her key. “You think I need you?” the man was yelling. “You need me a lot more than I need you sweetheart! If you want to leave, there’s the door! I’m sure your Daddy will welcome you with open arms!”

“I’m so sick and tired of you Greg! I’m sick of the games and I’m sick of you making me feel guilty for things I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for!” the woman replied. “You don’t deserve me,” she added before slamming the door.

As Angela finally managed to get the front door open, she saw the woman from the first floor coming down the hall. “Excuse me,” she said as she slipped past Angela. 

She watched the woman leave, expecting the door of the apartment to fling open as she walked down the hall, thinking the man, Greg, would chase after her. But the door remained closed and the apartment was quiet, much to Angela’s relief. She made her way upstairs and as she turned the corner of the second floor landing, she saw a young man standing against the   
railing. He had obviously been listening in. He looked down embarrassed as she locked eyes with him. 

“I couldn’t help it,” he said. “They’re right under me and all I hear every night is them fighting,” he said. “I hope it’s really over this time.”

He was around her own age, probably another BU student. She nodded. “It sounds like it might be,” she said, climbing the stairs to the third floor. “Good night,” she called back to him.  
As usual, Angela felt like the morning came too quickly. The sun blinded her, waking her up immediately. She groaned as she as she spun to sit on the edge of the bed, stretching and yawning. When she had regained semi-consciousness, she stood and got ready for class. Outside, cars and trains passed and horns honked indicating the morning rush had begun. 

She gathered her things and left the apartment, making her way to class. When she arrived at the lecture hall she was, as always, the first student. She claimed a seat and opened up her laptop, booting it up as students began filing in. The door at the front of the room opened and Professor Fletcher walked in, placing her bag on the floor beside the desk below.

“We’re going to talk today about motive,” she said, approaching the podium in front of the class. “As you know, motive is simply the reason for a crime. Whether it’s a person stealing the work of a co-worker to gain credit for a project or an abused person retaliating against their tormentor…motive is one of the first things we look for in a criminal case.”  
“But what about those having no motive at all?” a student asked. “A crime of passion?” he suggested.

She nodded. “Well, a crime of passion would have motive. A jaded lover finding out their partner had done them wrong would be motive for her to kill him. It may be a moment of passion, but that just means it wasn’t pre-meditated. She still had motive,” Professor Fletcher answered. “Though, there are crimes that lack motive. Sadly, there are people out there, though few and far between, who do bad things, just to do them.”

She stepped out from the podium, pacing the front of the room. “Motive may sound simple at first, but I promise you, it is anything but,” she said. “We all have motive for doing bad things. Right this very minute,” she said. “One person may be found shot dead, and there may be several people with plenty of reasons to want that person dead, however, it is unlikely that all of them held the gun together and fired,” she said. “So you can see, we can’t just go off motive when trying to solve a case. Motive is merely a base to progress. Too often do we find investigators who rush to conclusions based on the most obvious of motivated suspects, instead of realizing that motive is simply a foundation to build upon.”

She looked up and pointed at one of the students. “Mason, perhaps you got a bad grade in another class. It might make you angry and upset. It could even be something that could greatly affect your life. For some, that would be reason enough to kill, but that doesn’t mean you would.” The boy was nervous being pointed out at her and the class laughed. “That leads us to another point. Obviously if a group of people each have a motive to kill someone, and only one of them did it, that means that the others were strong enough to control their emotions and feelings and keep from committing such a heinous crime.”

The class was intrigued, as was the usual case, as she spoke. The woman had decades of experience both writing fictional murders, and solving real-life ones. She had deduced dozens of cases and traveled the world gaining a reputation as a valuable asset to the field of criminal investigation, and had gone from stumbling across crimes and meeting reluctance from agencies, to being sought out for assistance by those same people.

As she continued, she was suddenly interrupted by the vibrating of all the cell phones in the room, including her own. The students and faculty were connected to a campus network that sent out notifications. This one was an unfortunate one. Professor Fletcher paused her lecture and looked down at her phone. Angela did the same and was shocked to see the post. 

“Hey!” one student shouted out. “A woman’s body was found on campus this morning!” she said, stating what, by now, everyone else already knew.

“Oh my,” Jessica gasped. 

“Are you gonna go solve it Professor?” a girl asked.

She laughed softly. “Oh, no Rebecca, my crime-solving days are over,” she paused. “Although I can’t say I’m not curious,” she said. “Let’s leave it at that today, shall we? I have a feeling the campus is going to be told to sit tight soon. Be safe out there and I’ll see you all Friday,” she said, dismissing the class.

Angela remained in her seat, looking down at the phone. She had suddenly realized where she knew the name of the victim. She had seen it on the mailbox in her building. She was the woman she had witnessed storming out of the building the night before. Professor Fletcher had gathered her things and looked up to see Angela still there. “Angela, what’s wrong? Why haven’t you left?” she asked.

Angela stood up. “Professor Fletcher,” she said. “I know who this woman is. The body the found,” she said. “She lives in my building.”

“Oh dear,” Jessica said, covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry Angela. Are you ok?” she asked, walking up the stairs. 

“I’m fine. I didn’t really know her, but there is one thing,” Angela said.

“What is it?” Jessica asked. 

“Well, I saw this woman leaving my building last night as I was getting in. She was upset, and I had just heard her arguing with her husband,” she said. “Do you think it could be him?”

Jessica’s eyes widened. “Angela, I think you should come with me. You may have been the last person to have seen this woman alive, I think the police would be very interested in anything information you could give them,” she said.

Angela nodded, letting out a sigh. Why did she have to get home to witness the argument? “I knew I should have just stopped and got something to eat before going home last night,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> I grew up spending a lot of time at my grandmothers house and was very close to her. Like most grandmothers of people my age, she LOVED "Murder She Wrote", and of course because of this I've always been partial to it myself. I find myself always thinking of my grandmother whenever I see Angela Lansbury. I've been watching old episodes on Netflix the last couple of months and started wishing that someone would reboot that show so that future generations might be exposed somehow to the original and I started thinking of ways they could. It would of course need updates, and tweaking from the original. I wondered if they'd just recast Jessica Fletcher or go with something new.
> 
> At first, I was thinking of making the main character a relative of Jessica's, but JB is a childless widow, and the show was always going overboard with nieces and nephews that came out of the woodwork like carpenter ants! Haha. Enter, Angela Price, a forensics student in Boston who grew up, like me, a fan of JB Fletcher. And here she is, an adjunct professor at her school. So this first story features a collaboration between the teacher and student, and serves as a "passing of the torch" so to speak before I begin writing new original stories involving Angela and her future exploits.
> 
> Hopefully you enjoy it. This is my first foray into Murder Mystery. My other non-AOOO works are mostly Sci-Fi/Fantasy in nature , so this is a first for me plot/structure-wise. As always, comments are welcome and greatly appreciated.


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